News: “Flying is like good music: it elevates the spirit and it's an exhilarating freedom. It's not a thrill thing or an adrenaline rush; it's engaging in a process that takes focus and commitment." - Harrison Ford

NEW THIS YEAR — The Renton City Council recently passed Resolution 3934, authorizing the Airport to collect a $100 waiting list fee, which helps cover the cost of maintaining the waiting list. If you wish to remain on the Hangar Waiting List, you MUST include a payment of $100 with your waiting list update form. This is a one-time fee that is non-refundable.

I've heard a lot of grousing about this item lately and it seems to me that all the criticism is way out of line.

Personally, I would like to call-out the nay-sayers, and salute the Herculean efforts of those tireless souls who do all the hard work required to maintain the hangar waiting list at Renton. I can only imagine the long, hard hours they must put in, making sure that the list is not lost under a stack of Sporty's catalogs and mistakenly recycled, ensuring that nobody spills coffee on the list thus rendering it all crinkly and hard to read, keeping my dog from eating the list on the night before it must be handed in (this is a serious threat - just ask my Junior High School history teacher), and all the other challenges they must surely be constantly facing to ensure that the list continues to be maintained in an airworthy condition and in full compliance with all King County, FAA and TSA mandates.

As pilots and aircraft owners, we all know just how critically important that regular maintenance can be. Fail to maintain your airplane properly, and tragedy can result. Unfortunately, in this post-9/11 world, airport hangar waiting list maintenance is really no different. Municipal airport agencies simply must have the tools necessary to ensure there are no potential security threats among would-be hangar tenants. Imagine the harm that could come if the evil-doers were to gain access to a T-hangar, where they could labor secretly behind closed hangar doors, and modifying Ercoupes and Tripacers, turning them into sophisticated killing machines capable of reducing entire cities to cinders in the blink of an eye. Perhaps background checks need to be done to screen out foreigners, people who use the internets, and others whose loyalties are questionable. Those background checks don't come cheap, and of course you can't be too careful.

Cynics might scoff at paying such a large fee for "list maintenance" and wonder exactly how much "maintenance" a list of names might really require. Those who raise such questions would do well to remember that in the 21st century, airport hangar waiting list maintenance has become a highly technical field, requiring extensive, specialized training and professional certification, as well as dedicated resources. Gone are the days when an airport manager (or his administrative assistant) simply jotted down names and phone numbers on a clipboard. Today, list maintenance requires sophistacted computers running advanced software that previous generations of airport management professionals could never have imagined. You have to type in those names and phone numbers into a computer, where they are stored. Once in the computer, the hangar waiting list data must be processed and sorted. Presentations with bullet-points and even pie-charts can be created from the list data indicating demand (this data can be very useful when the airport authority lobbies for construction of additional hangars, as they so often do). The data files must be backed up and secured, and constantly guarded against all kinds of threats to its safety and integrity. Anyone reading this should be able to understand exactly how much time and trouble those tasks can require.

Maintaining airport hangar waiting lists is difficult, often unappreciated work, but those who toil long hours in Excel sorting names by zip codes truly deserve our thanks. I for one agree with the Chairman of the National Association of Municipal Airport Hangar Waiting List Management Professionals (NAMAHWLMP) when he quotes a line from a film by one of America's top directors:

So those of you who are on a waiting list for a hangar at your local airport, suck it up, and take one for the team. No, go one better: you should feel good about writing that hundred dollar check, knowing that you are providing essential support for all those dedicated airport hangar waiting list management professionals working on the front lines, the very people who will make sure that over time, as your name eventually bubbles up to the top of that well-maintained list, you will have a secure, warm, dry place to store your airplane in about 18 years.

That's what I think, but what the heck do I know? My airplane's sitting out in the rain.

I was just looking into a correspondence course to become a (NAMAHWLMP). They are all booked up. The Correspondence University said recently there has been a demand to become a NAMAHWLMP and the best they could do for now was put me on a waiting list. Rumor has it that the pay for a good NAMAHWLMP has gone up very significantly.P.S. If anyone else wants to be on the NAMAHWLMP correspondence course waiting list they're fee is only $99.95. I also will get a waiting list discount if I can get three others to sign up.....

Think about it... The pay has got to be good. The bigger the list the more money and if you're certified NAMAHWLMP then you can have countless waiting list to maintain. You'll be employed by the Municipality besides and you'll get all the benefits and perks. After three years you call everyone up on the list and tell them "the list is obsolete and needs to be refreshed.... send another $100"

This kind of thing has been going on in Juneau, AK airport for decades... Just when you think this is ridiculously wait till next month

I generally agree with what has been said, but being on an airport committee and dealing with a waiting list, one thing I would not mind seeing is a fee to be on the waiting list. Refundable with the first months rent when you get into a hangar.

We have people from all over the region put their name on a waiting list, then when we call them with availability, we go through the first third of the list "isn't quite ready yet". Bull Hockey!!! They are locking up a spot for whenever their airport closes or some other event. It is a free insurance policy. At least a deposit would call them to task.

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Jeff DavisKennewick WA

hotrod150

Personally, I can't blame anyone wanting to hedge their bets by getting on a waiting list, when the wait might be measured in years. Maybe they owned an airplane when they signed up, but by the time they were called (who knows how much later) they'd got rid of it. And maybe they want to stay on the list cuz they're gonna buy another one. That doesn't hurt anyone else in line for a hangar-- the person declines the offer and the hangar owner calls the next name on the list. No big deal. My airport has a similar policy for the Port-owned hangars-- a years-long waiting list, and a hundred dollar fee to get on it. $100 is way out of line IMHO -- if you have to charge a fee, what's wrong with like $25 ?

I just got on the waiting list for grove field and the Port of Camas/Washougal now charges $25 to get on the wait list. non-refundable and no credit. If they call you, you have to take it or you lose your place and your 25 bucks and have to re-apply and re-pay to get back on. Several years ago when i got on the wait list, I paid 25 bucks but it credited to the first month rent and you could bypass twice before they threw you off.

David hit it right on.....

Tim

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hotrod150

I just got on the waiting list for grove field and the Port of Camas/Washougal now charges $25 to get on the wait list. non-refundable and no credit. If they call you, you have to take it or you lose your place and your 25 bucks and have to re-apply and re-pay to get back on.....

Any fee to get on a waiting list is a rip-off, but at least $25 ain't a bank-breaker. I do think it's OK to rotate you back to the bottom of the list if you turn down a hangar, but making you repay that $25 fee is BS.